THE NEW YOR.KER. the technologies, neither has pro- gressed much. The assumption has been that directed-energy weapons might be an option in the distant future, and that at some point-probably well into the next millennium-these de- vices could be phased into the deter- rence scheme and nuclear weapons could perhaps be phased out. In brief, none of Reagan's predecessors have questioned the wisdom of sustaining research in this family of weapons, which includes lasers, beams of charged particles travelling at nearly the speed of light, and ultra-high- speed missiles, along with an array of daunting support technologies for them. What to do about "exotics," as they used to be called, was an is- sue during the negotiations on the A.B.M. treaty. Late in 1971, the par- ties agreed to ban testing and deploy- ment of such systems and their compo- nents; no restrictions were placed on research, if only because it isn't possi- ble to monitor, and so verify, the ex- tent of research. But the ripple effect of the Reagan proposal would include moving research out of the laborato- ries and into space-starting probably in the early nineteen-nineties-and carrying out tests that would violate the A.B.M. treaty. Since the planning for all this is under way, the treaty- the backbone of the arms-control re- gime-is in jeopardy, and a common anxiety is uniting America's allies. 1) EALITY in the nuclear age tends ft. to become what people whose voices carry say it is. Competent tech- nicians are available to shore up any side of any argument. A given point of view may be vulnerable to ridicule but not to being disproved by facts; these are obscured by unknowns and ab- stractions arising from the nature, the role, the destructive potential, and the reliability of nuclear weapons. Proba- bly no one other than a politically secure American President could have imposed upon his own country and others-allies and adversary alike-a notion as farfetched as most experi- enced scientists and technicians con- sider the Star Wars proposal to be. In one short passage of a speech delivered in March of 1983, the President pro- posed creating a defense that would "give us the means of rendering . . . nuclear weapons impotent and ob- solete." Virtually no one beyond a remarkably tiny circle in the White House had been aware that he would make such a proposal, or even that he was contemplating it. Within the gov- LJ LJ -- ì u --- " \. -- (--, 41 1-;J --- L , ) --------- -- -- --- "T o day I'm going to do something nice for me ." . ernment, the idea hadn't been ex- amined, let alone "staffed out," as Presidential initiatives invariably are. Secretary of Defense Caspar Wein- berger may have been forewarned, al- though it is far from clear that he was, but Secretary of State George Shultz was blindsided. On the evening before the speech was delivered, Shultz was meeting in his office with three aides when a copy of the speech arrived from the White House-not for com- ment but for Shultz's information. One of the aides described their reac- tion as "stunned, flabbergasted." N u- clear deterrence, it appeared, was out, and defense-not just partial defense but a seamless, perfect astrodome- was in. Many people in the Adminis- tration were appalled, and most were skeptical, to put it mildly. The true believers and the advocates were a small group-as they still are-in- cluding the President's science ad- viser, George Keyworth, and Edward Teller, who pioneered the develop- ment of the hydrogen bomb. The ad- vocates have tended to equate tech- nically competent opponents of Star Wars with the scientists who ques- . tioned the feasibility of the Manhattan Project and the Apollo program. Pre- dictable breakthroughs in computers and data processing, they argue, will allow lasers and particle beams to de- stroy ballistic missiles during the four minutes or so of their boost phase, which is when they are most vulnera- ble: in this phase they are rising slowly; their hot exhaust plumes make them easy to detect with infrared sen- sors; and each missile constitutes one target instead of many, because its nu- merous warheads and decoys are still lodged in the nose cone awaiting release. And what about attacking vehicles that may survive the boost phase? It is said that these, too, can be knocked out-in a "layered" space de- fense-but Star Wars advocates con- cede that destroying them becomes progressively more difficult during the twenty minutes of flight remaining. Reagan, in his remarkable speech, said that society should be defended against a nuclear attack instead of merely avenged. Noone disputes his preference. And he isn't the first Chief Executive to believe, quite genuinely, that if an idea he likes plays well as a